Let Me Be Your Wings
by cynmoon
Summary: Emma Swan, fresh out of prison, had never felt more insignificant in her life. At least until she woke up pint-sized and wound up the captive of pirates in Neverland. Follow Emma down the rabbit hole as she tries to find her way, along with a pirate captain who may be just as broken as she is. All you need is faith, trust, and a little bit of pixie dust. Captain Swan AU
1. Chapter 1: Tomorrow Comes a Day Too Soon

_Angel, sweet angel of my youth  
Where have you gone? You flew away too soon  
This brick I built, now builds a higher wall  
See it crumble, hear me fall  
There hangs the fool, who once had it all_

**Flogging Molly, Tomorrow Comes a Day Too Soon**

* * *

It's amazing how everything can change in an instant. One moment she had this person—this life—growing inside of her, and the next she's laying cold and alone, chained to an uncomfortable bed in the prison's infirmary.

The nurses whisked her baby away as soon as he was born. Emma remembered the months she spent begging and pleading to keep him, but in the end everybody was right—she wasn't ready. She would probably never be ready.

Emma Swan had been alone since before she could remember; ever since she was an infant left abandoned and unwanted on the side of a highway. She rarely let herself believe that might ever change, because you always, _always_ got burned in the end. She should have known better than to think she would have had any chance with this child.

She had refused to even hold him, worried that she might not be able to let him go. But she knew she needed to. Unlike her, her child had a family waiting for him; one that would adopt him, take care of him, and love him in a way that Emma never had been.

She hoped he'd understand; she was 18 years old, in prison, and had no place to go once she left. What did she think she was going to do, raise a baby in a car? No, everybody was right. She needed to do this. She needed to give her child his best chance, and as much as she wanted it to be, that was never going to be with her.

Even knowing this, even understanding it, even choosing it, none of this changed the fact that Emma Swan had never felt more alone in her entire life. It was a physical ache that has nothing to do with the hours she had just spent in labor. She wished she could just feel numbness. She settled for sleep.

In the morning she would begin healing, and serving out the rest of her sentence. By the time she leaves, the only reminders she'll have of ever having a baby will be the fading stretch marks, and memories made in her beat up yellow bug.

* * *

**A/N: This is the shortest chapter in this series. It's pretty depressing, but the next chapter isn't any better. But really, if anybody deserves to throw themselves a pity party at this point it's Emma.**

**Sorry if the lyrics at the beginning of the chapter throw you off. They'll all be from Flogging Molly. I have a Flogging Molly/Me First and the Gimme Gimmes mix I've been playing non-stop that fills me with OUAT feels. I thought the lyrics were a good way to set the tone for each chapter.**


	2. Chapter 2: Another Bag of Bricks

_T'was in the early evenin'  
Near the presence of the moon  
You told me you would meet me here  
Well now is not too soon  
This dagger twisting in my back  
Tells me I never should  
Have trusted everything to fall  
From beggar to fool  
I see your face like every race  
A serpent with two arms  
Devouring me while rains the sun  
With dreams in foreign lands  
This cold dark tormented hell  
Is all I'll ever know_

**Flogging Molly, Another Bag of Bricks**

* * *

**Two months later**

The anxiety that had built up inside of her the week prior to her release was both unwelcome and unwanted, but not entirely unexpected.

Emma Swan had spent nearly the full first year of her adult life behind bars, and she was about to be released into the world with nothing but the issued clothes on her back, a pocket full of bus money, and a set of car keys in her pocket—the location of the car they belonged was still yet to be determined.

But her release papers had been filled out and signed, her sentence had been served in full, and she now was able to cross the threshold of the gates of the correctional facility that had housed her these past eleven months.

_Breathe in, breathe out._

Refusing to give any of the correctional officers the satisfaction of seeing her sweat—they had been making snide remarks the entire week prior expressing their doubt in her ability to make it on the outside—Emma held herself high and strode evenly through the entrance to the outside world.

Her first impression was that everything was blindingly bright. The sun reflected brilliantly off of the light colored sand that surrounded the complex, which proved to be a stark contrast to the florescent lights she had grown accustomed to dealing with.

She hesitated only a moment before continuing on. She was unfamiliar with the area, but if she could make it to a convenience store she thought she should be able to browse their bus schedules and find the fastest way out of town. She had spent enough time in Phoenix.

Idly, she began fiddling with the keychain in her pocket. She was still unsure about her plans after leaving town. She had no money. No job. No home. No friends or relatives to take her in. But if there was one thing Emma excelled at, it was surviving. She'd pulled herself out of worse circumstances, and she could do it again. Maybe. She hoped.

Confidence wavering, she began making her way through the parking lot to the main road when out of the corner of her eye she spotted it—her bug. The one she had stolen. The one where they met. The one they had shared. It was here.

She supposed she should have expected this; she had received the keys after all. Still, actually seeing it there—the tangible reminder of the life they'd had together—came as a shock.

The key still stuck, and she still needed to push on the door before pulling, but the familiarity of the actions started to make her feel more like herself. She glanced down at the driver's seat and saw the car title laying there. She felt her heart clench; all the paperwork was in her name. There was a new VIN. Officially, she was the legitimate owner of this car.

Instantly she was on alert. She began cataloguing other details. How long had it been sitting there? It's hot in the desert, and there was no small amount of sand surrounding the area, yet the bug was suspiciously clean. It couldn't have been sitting there more than a day. Was he here? Was this guilt? What was this?

Emma took a deep breath and realized this was it; if setting her up to be arrested and letting her take the fall for his crime weren't a big enough sign, this was definitely the final nail in that coffin: Neal was never coming back. He had set everything up so he never had to see her again. Everything was in _her_ name, not theirs. Nothing in the car that belonged to them remained. Even the dream catcher had been removed.

Maybe she should feel grateful; after all as long as you have a car you have a place to sleep, and Emma was all too familiar with what life could be like without a roof over your head. But mostly all she felt was a crushing disappointment settle in her chest and spread out through her limbs like icy water. Once again somebody realized they had no room for Emma Swan in their lives.

Which reminded her… she popped open the trunk in a panic, and then breathed a sigh of relief. Her box of personal effects was exactly where it should be. It wasn't much. A couple outfits, some shoes, and the one item she has never left behind: the baby blanket she was found in.

She hugged the blanket to herself and breathed in the scent; instead of finding comfort in this familiar action, Emma was hit a profound sting of loneliness. It just added to the reminder of the fact that abandoning her was a pattern people seemed to find all too easy.

She's not exactly sure what her parents could have seen in hours old baby Emma that made them decide that their lives would be better off without her, but clearly they were on the mark; not a single family she stayed with had wanted her either. And then Neal…

This was neither the time nor the place to have an emotional breakdown. She put her blanket away and closed the trunk. She was tempted to change into her own clothes now, but decided it would be better to get on the road first. She was so tired of the desert.

With no destination in mind, she decided that east was just as good a direction as any. It took her a few tries to find an onramp, but in no time she was on the highway and driving far away from her cold cell and the memories it contained.

The gas tank was full, so she ignored several gas stations along the way. She wanted to put as much distance as possible between her and the prison before she stopped, the lingering feeling that she might have to go back nagging at the back of her mind.

She fell easily back into the familiarity of driving, enjoying the blank feeling her mind obtained by focusing on the road in front of her. It stretched for miles, and everywhere she looked was more desert. It took her several hours and half a tank of gas before she found a small rest stop near the state border. Exhaustion was starting to set in, and this place was as good as any to rest for the night.

She pulled into the empty parking lot, and found a nice shady spot under a tree. She grabbed the box with her clothes out of the car's trunk, and headed into the rest room to change.

Frustratingly, it took her several attempts before she found anything that fit. Her hips weren't as narrow as they once were and her stomach wasn't as flat. She was wiping away tears from her cheeks before she even realized she was crying, and she added embarrassing bodily functions to the list of things in her life that she couldn't control.

In the end, she settled on an old floral printed sundress in a stretchy material, and her leather jacket. Once she slipped on her tights and boots she started feeling more like herself.

She headed to the mirror to fix her hair into a high, tight pony tail. She gave her face a quick rinse, and then reached for her glasses. She hesitated before she put back them on, then slowly raised her eyes to the mirror; she didn't recognize the girl staring back at her. Her eyes were colder than she remembered, and her face harder. She had circles under her eyes that weren't there before. Emma removed her glasses so she wouldn't have to see herself as clearly anymore.

She loaded her items back in the bug, and then headed out on a walk around the property to stretch her sore legs. She was out in the fresh air, in her own clothes, walking as she pleased with no walls in sight; she felt like she should be giddy at the prospect, but mostly her chest ached.

She fingered her keychain again. She wondered if Neal was thinking about her. She wasn't sure which would be worse: if he were, or if he weren't. He probably wasn't. If he wanted to see her, he could have. He clearly knew her release date, and where she was. He used her to get off scot free and was probably living it up in Canada with the money he got for fencing the watches she procured.

Angrily she chucked the keychain, keys and all, across the lawn.

She immediately realized the foolishness of that action and ran to retrieve them.

It wasn't long before she spied the swan keychain peaking out of the grass, giving away the location of the keys. She removed the keychain from the ring, and briefly considered tossing it to the ground before she came up with a better idea.

She headed back through the car and dug out an old necklace. She removed the pendant from the chain and replaced it with the keychain. She put the necklace on, and the cold metal felt _right_ over her aching chest. It was the perfect reminder of that raw feeling that followed trusting someone completely.

She continued her trek around the area until the sun sank below the horizon. The temperature dropped drastically, and she mentally braced herself for a long night.

Emma headed back to the car and ran the heater long enough to warm the cabin. It wasn't a permanent solution to stay warm through the night, but she hoped to doze off before the cold sunk in.

Suddenly a thought hit her — nobody would care that Emma wouldn't be warm enough at night. Nobody cared that she was sleeping in her car. Nobody cared that she was alone. Nobody was looking for her. Nobody wanted her. Not her parents, not any of the foster families she stayed with, not Neal…

Emma Swan had never felt more insignificant and unwanted than she did in that exact moment. Tears streamed silently down her face as that thought effectively silenced all others in her mind, and slowly she cried herself to sleep, clutching her swan necklace.

* * *

**A/N: I did so much research on Arizona State Prisons for the three sentences I mentioned it in this chapter. Fun fact: you don't get to keep your clothes unless you have someone to send them to. **

**Also, SO MUCH ANGST. Again, completely earned but wow. These two chapters are set up for the next one though, which is the real beginning of the story. This whole fic was based on the concept of an episode of Sabrina the Teenage Witch, where Sabrina feels so insignificant that she literally shrinks herself. I was trying to figure out a way to have an Emma as Thumbelina story, and that idea hit me and made so much sense. (I'd say spoiler alert, but you read the description, you kind of know what's coming at this point, right?)**

**I actually ended up re-writing this entire chapter because I decided to change the tense of the story and it ended up… very wrong. Some sentences of the original chapter I wrote remain, and you can spot them by their awkwardness.**


	3. Chapter 3: Devil's Dance Floor

_Well she took me by the hand  
I could see she was a fiery one  
Her legs ran all the way  
Up to heaven and past Avalon  
Tell me somethin' girl, what it is you have in store  
She said come with me now  
On the Devil's Dance Floor_

_**Flogging Molly, Devil's Dance Floor**_

* * *

Ultimately Emma was woken up by the cold. Her shivering became too much, and gradually she began to rouse from her uncomfortable sleep. She tried curling into a tight ball to regain some warmth when she was struck with the realization that she was laying face first on a large flat surface—something one doesn't expect having fallen asleep huddled in the cramped front seat of a Volkswagen Bug.

Emma was not unaccustomed to waking up in strange locations. In that moment between asleep and awake there was always a fleeting feeling of panic that was usually quashed as Emma remembered the events of the previous evening.

Still, Emma was positive she had fallen asleep in the driver's seat of her car; which in no way explained how she could be laying face first on a smooth, unfamiliar surface. Slowly she began to open her eyes.

The first thing she noticed was that her surroundings seemed familiar, but she couldn't place them. All around her was shiny metal, and faded vinyl. She ventured a glance up and saw… a giant steering wheel?

_This can't be happening._ She was in her car! It grew! Or she shrunk. What was happening? She shot straight up and started looking around wildly, hoping for any sign that would contradict her first assessment.

Emma was proud of her ability to remain calm in the face of most situations, but this? This was so far out of her comfort zone. What was she supposed to do? She couldn't reach the door handle anymore, and even if she could she didn't have the leverage to open it. _Oh god, I'm trapped._

She took a few deep breaths and tried to approach the situation logically. Logically, this couldn't be happening; cars don't suddenly grow, and people don't suddenly shrink. However the knowledge that it _couldn't_ happen didn't seem to change the fact that it_ had_.

She considered the fact that she could still be sleeping. But she didn't feel like she was sleeping. She pinched herself to be sure. Yep, it hurt. It wasn't supposed to hurt in dreams, right? So this was either the most realistic dream in the world, or Emma was having a mental breakdown. These were obviously the only two options as people don't just _shrink_.

Emma felt her heart racing and her breathing become erratic. She sat back down, trying to take a moment to process everything. She hugged her knees to her chest and placed her head between them, desperately trying to regain her calm. She took deep, shaky breaths in an effort to slow her heart rate. She could hear it beating in her ears, loudly, drowning out all other sound and thought.

Eventually her breathing evened out, and her heart rate slowed down. As it did, the sheer panic she had felt was replaced by frustration. So Emma gave herself permission to do something she hadn't allowed herself to in a long while—she cried.

She didn't cry the silent tears that would sometimes escape without her permission, no, Emma actively _sobbed_.

All of the hardships of her life seemed to come crashing down on her at once, and she screamed at the futility and utter _unfairness_ of her situation.

After what felt like hours, her sobbing eventually softened to muffled crying, with the occasional shaky sniffle. _What am I supposed to do?_

With her forehead pressed against her knees, and the sound of her own crying filling her ears, Emma managed to miss the tinkling ball of light that made its way into her cabin.

"Girl, why are you crying?"

Emma whipped her head up and stared at the figure in front of her. _What the hell? _She blinked a few times, as though that would somehow make the hallucination go away but no such luck. Standing in front of her, wings and all, was an honest to goodness _freaking_ fairy.

She was wearing a dress that looked like it was made out of foliage and flower petals, and it made a crisp crunching noise with each flutter of her wings. Her blonde hair tumbled out of a crown of braids on her head into a mess of tangles below.

She stared back at Emma expectantly, her head cocked to the side like a curious puppy's.

Emma finally found her voice, "Who—Who are you?"

Her voice came out scratchy, and felt raw from lack of use. She tried to remember the last time she talked anybody.

The fairy gave a tiny, stiff bow, as if she were unsure what the actual motion was supposed to look like.

"My name is Tinker Bell," she announced proudly. "What is your name?"

_Tinker Bell. Of course. _Emma wasn't so sure that her self-diagnosis of insanity was that far off; she began to debate the merits of answering her own hallucination. The confusion must have shown on her face, because the fairy's face quickly morphed into one of pity.

"Oh dear, were you never given a name?"

She was beginning to feel rude for not answering, and deciding that there was no real _downside_ in talking to what was essentially herself, she gave in.

"Emma," she responded "Swan."

Tinker Bell gave her a serene smile, as though Emma has just shared with her a special secret.

"Are you lost, Emma?"

"I —," Emma began to protest, before she realized that she just might be.

"Where I'm from, the children cry at night because they're lost. They miss their families."

Emma scoffed, "I have no family."

"Oh, no wonder you were crying."

"I'm not crying because I don't have a family," Emma replied indignantly, getting a strange sense of déjà vu from this conversation, "I woke up tiny! I'm, like, three inches tall! And I'm possibly having a mental breakdown."

Tinker Bell laughed, "Being small is no reason to cry! All _fairies_ are small."

"Yeah? Well I ain't a fairy."

"Well _obviously_," Tinker Bell said patronizingly, "You don't have any wings."

Emma had no idea what it was about that sentence she found so upsetting. Maybe it was the fact that she was being talked down to by her own imagination. Maybe it was just the combined stress of the events of the day. But no matter what it was, _that_ was what managed to reduce her to blubbering again.

Tinker Bell looked flabbergasted at this sudden turn of events, and tried to backtrack, "Oh but you're lovely! Plenty of people don't have wings! You have such beautiful hair!"

Seeing that her attempts at compliments were ineffective, Tinker Bell pulled Emma into an embrace and began to pet her hair in an attempt to soothe her, "There, there, darling. Don't cry."

The shock of physical contact was as effective as a bucket of ice water for Emma, who immediately ceased crying. She awkwardly removed herself from the hug, and offered Tinker Bell a strained smile.

"Thank you. I'm… better?"

Tinker Bell flashed her another winning smile.

Unbeknownst to Emma, Tinker Bell was quite taken with her. She could see the magic rolling off of her in waves, unheard of in this realm—supposedly impossible. The physical contact gave the fairy a small taste of what was brewing beneath the surface. There was a light inside Emma, one that shone as brightly as any of the Neverland stars; all of that brilliance was wasted in a world without magic.

Fairies were simple creatures, by nature, quickly flitting from one emotion to the next, never able to hold on to more than one at once. So when Tinker Bell received that taste of Emma's magic, she selfishly coveted it for herself, completely forgetting the pity she'd held for the girl just moments earlier. She'd made up her mind.

"Emma Swan, I'm going to give you a special gift. It was supposed to be for a lost Lost Boy, but I can't seem to find him anyway."

Emma responded cautiously, "What is it?"

"A home. Where you never have to worry about families, or size, or sadness again. You can forget it all. No more worries at all. Forever."

Emma was wary, "Let me guess: Neverland?"

Tinker Bell smiled deviously.

"Neverland," she confirmed. "Now, think happy thoughts!"

"Wait, no—!"

But it was too late. The last thing Emma saw was a bright puff of glitter in her face before she felt a pinching, stinging sensation, like being pushed through hot, sticky, rubber. She tried to breathe but was unable to draw in any oxygen. She desperately tried to gasp for air as her world went black.

* * *

**A/N: Dialogue! It went a bit different from my original notes. I have a full three different versions of this chapter, and this is the one I ended up going with. It ended up being the lightest on dialogue. I had trouble deciding what I wanted for Tink's personality. I thought about waiting for the show to base it off of that, but decided against it. It's an AU fic anyway.**

**And in case you were wondering why Tink suddenly showed up, I did explain it (kind of) in the dialogue. There ****_was_**** a former Lost Boy who used to sleep in that Bug… ;-)**

**I realize I mentioned this when I posted it to tumblr, but not here: just to let you know this fic should be updated once a week on Wednesdays. I have a few chapters done already, but I am a slllllooooooowwww writer. So I could post them all at once but then there would be a long wait in-between updates. This way I feel like it stays pretty consistent, and you know what to expect.**


	4. Chapter 4: Cruel Mistress

_As the wind laughs in my face  
I've grown harder on the eyes  
And salty to the taste  
My pride has gone with the wake  
As I wait a cold wet grave  
I rose to the smell  
Of a wet desert hell  
And I thought to myself  
How'd I wind up in this jail_

_**Flogging Molly, Cruel Mistress**_

* * *

_What. The. Hell._

Emma hoped she was still asleep in her car. She hoped she was just shaking off the remnants of a bad dream. She hoped that the warmth and wetness seeping through her clothes were just from a sweat filled night caused by accidentally falling asleep with the car's heater on and, at worst, she'd have to deal with a dead battery.

Instead, she was laying face first in a mud puddle in the middle of a lush, tropical forest. All around her were colors that were bright—too bright for her sore eyes; from the beautiful rainbow of flowers that looked as though they were raining down from the vines in the dense canopy of trees, to the bright blue of the sky peaking through the thick green leaves.

From her perspective, everything was enormous. And swirling. Though that might have just been because of the concussion.

She pulled herself out of the mud with a loud squelch. She was filthy, every part of her ached something fierce, and the large mud-caked gash on her head was a pretty good indication of her less than smooth landing. And she was alone. Abandoned. Again.

_Great._

She had no idea what it was she was supposed to do. She was alone in an unfamiliar wilderness, she had little to no supplies, and even if she had some way to get her bearings, she had no idea where she was supposed to go because she was in freaking _Neverland_. To say that she was overwhelmed would be an understatement.

_Okay, just think. What do they do in movies? Find food and water. There's mud. That means water, right? _She whipped her head around a few times looking for a water source, but there was none in sight. She reasoned that there had to be a river around somewhere; even if she couldn't see it, she thought she could distantly hear rushing water.

She tried to narrow in on the sound, and after a moments deliberation decided to walk straight ahead. She was bound to run into water eventually, right?

* * *

**Hours Later**

The sun was rapidly sinking past the horizon in the distance. Emma had no concept of how long it had been, but the mud on her clothes had dried into ever flaking dirt; she was sore, dizzy, uncomfortable, exhausted, hot, thirsty, and a multitude of other complaints that all added up to being absolutely miserable. And as far as she could tell? She was _still_ no closer to finding water.

She groaned in frustration. She had never lived in the wilderness. She had never even been camping, not really. Unless you counted squatting on a park bench over night—which didn't exactly prepare her for _this_ place.

She spied a vine covered tree in the distance, and came up with an idea—she needed to get her bearings, and she was never going to do that from the ground. And worst case scenario, at least it would get her off of the ground, right? She hadn't spied any wildlife yet, but she wasn't exactly looking forward to whatever nocturnal beasts this land had. She may have been lost, alone, and the size of a dormouse but Emma Swan drew the line at dying as owl food.

She approached the foot of the tree and looked up. From Emma's perspective, the nearest branch might as well be a mile off of the ground. She wasn't afraid of heights so much as she worried about her own limitations. The vines looked thick and sturdy enough to easily support her weight, but after months of inactivity due to pregnancy, and having spent the day walking aimlessly in her search for water, she was exhausted—if she lost her energy even halfway to the top, she was done for.

Seeing no other option, she took a deep breath and began her ascent.

If she had worried about being lost in her own thoughts, that concern was quickly vanquished as she concentrated on the climb. It was a bit harder to get a grip on the vines than she originally had thought; they were particularly thick in some areas, which required a bit of navigation to get around—a feat that was becoming more and more difficult as the sky darkened. Slowly, but steadily, she made her way up.

By the time she reached the branch at the top it the sun had long since set. She could make out the shape of the landscape in the moonlight, but it was too dark to make out any details which meant she was no closer to finding the nearest water source.

Sticky, aching, and defeated, she collapsed into a ball near the trunk of the tree and, giving into her exhaustion, she immediately fell dead asleep.

* * *

"Emma? Emma? Wake up Emma!"

For a brief, crazed moment, Emma found herself hoping she was back in prison; that the events of the previous day had been a fevered nightmare, and she could just fall back into the routine she knew so well.

Those hopes were immediately dashed when she opened her eyes and found herself face to face with Tinker Bell.

"Emma, I've been looking all over for you! Where did you go?"

Emma stared at the fairy incredulously. Was she really expecting her to answer that?

Taking in the state of her unwilling companion, Tinker Bell tsked.

"Did you _climb_ all the way up here? Poor thing. Come, we'll get you washed up."

Without waiting for a response from Emma, Tinker Bell clasped her hand and dragged her from the tree.

"Whoa!" Emma's stomach felt like it dropped out from under her, and she brought her other hand up to grasp the fairy's wrist for dear life. Only there was no need; once the panic receded Emma became aware of the fact that she felt light, as though Tinker Bell were dragging her through water instead of high above the forest floor.

Tinker Bell giggled, clearly expecting this response, which earned her a glare from Emma.

Now in the clear light of day, flitting through the tree tops, Emma got a better idea of her location. To her right all she could see were trees, foliage, and an array of brightly colored flowers growing out from every which direction. To her left, far off in the distance, lay an expansive clear blue ocean, nearly blinding her with the sun's reflection. She was in a regular tropical paradise. Which would have been far more exciting were she not smaller than the fruits she could spy high up in the trees.

Tinker Bell, blessedly, dropped her next to the stream that Emma had spent the entirety of the previous day searching for.

Emma had never been more grateful to see water in her entire life. Immediately she began gulping down handful after handful, ignoring her amused onlooker completely.

"Thirsty, are we?"

Emma didn't waste her energy glaring. Instead, she drank her fill, then began to rinse off. The combination of the caked in dirt and water was doing nothing more than turning her into a muddy mess. Frustrated, Emma began to scoot her way into the cold river.

"Emma, no, be careful—!"

But it was too late. The river seemed peaceful enough, but for someone Emma's size the current was too strong. She was immediately dragged away from the shoreline and began barreling down the river, all the while struggling to keep her head above water.

"EMMA!"

Tinker Bell flitted overhead, trying to catch Emma in the rushing river. She watched as Emma went under time and time again. She darted over to the shoreline and grabbed a twig—which was rather large for the pixie—and hurried to bring it to Emma.

"Emma! Grab hold!"

She held out one end for Emma to hold onto. Emma saw it, and took her chance, latching onto it with both hands. But instead of being lifted up, as she had hoped, all she managed to do was drag the pixie down.

"Oh!" Tinker Bell sputtered. She let go of the twig and immediately shot out of the water, shaking off her wings. Her dress had been ruined, and her hair was a soggy mess. She spun around quickly trying to dry herself off. By the time she was satisfied that no lasting harm had been done, Emma was long gone.

* * *

In what was becoming an increasingly familiar sensation, Emma awoke sore, disoriented, and in an unfamiliar environment.

She coughed the remnants of water from her lungs and tried to get an idea of where she ended up.

Everywhere she looked was sand, glaringly bright and reminding her unpleasantly of the desert prison she had just been released from— though it felt like that could have been a lifetime ago.

Still, it left a heavy feeling in her stomach that had nothing to do with her near death experience.

Dragging herself away from the water's edge, she pulled herself up further onto the beach. Once satisfied she was out of danger of being dragged away yet again, she allowed herself a moment to dry off, even enjoying warming herself in the sun. For just a moment she could close her eyes and pretend that she was camping out on a beach, instead of trapped in a scenario beyond her worst nightmare.

So engrossed in her beach bum fantasy, she failed to notice the man who had spying on her from the woods nearby. Stealthily, so as not to alert her to his presence, he crept up on her relaxed form.

"Gotcha!"

Emma bolted upright, but it was too late. He had already grabbed her, her entire body practically fitting in the palm of her hand. She tried wriggling out of his grasp but it was no use.

Before she knew it, she had been shoved in what very much looked like a red knit sack.

* * *

**A/N: OMG I HATED WRITING THIS CHAPTER. I scrapped so many versions of it. I'm really not a fan of overly descriptive scenery, and I tried very hard not to do it here. But then I realized I hadn't described it at all and had to go back and it just kept becoming a mess.**

**Also, I know there are Captain Floor shippers out there so I'm sorry to inform you that it was obviously SwanFloor first and forever.**

**And Smee! In case the red knit sack/cap wasn't a giveaway. I thought maybe people wouldn't buy Smee being stealthy at anything, as he's a fairly large man but you know what? He's a procurer. You don't become a procurer without being a bit stealthy.**

**I'm so happy to be through this chapter. This one had the least notes. It was pretty much just "Emma ends up in Neverland. Emma falls in river. Emma is captured by pirates." Filling in the blanks of that was… not so much fun.**

**Next chapter? Hook.**


End file.
